Other views: US 'no-fly' list ineffective, needs changing

Abe Mashal, a 34-year-old Marine veteran, had flown frequently around the country to work with clients in his dog-training business. But when Mashal tried to pick up his boarding pass at Chicago's Midway International Airport in April 2010, he was surrounded by Transportation Security Administration agents and police and told that he was on the nation's no-fly list.

"I thought it was some type of sick joke," Mashal recalls. He also thought he could quickly straighten it out. He cooperated with the FBI. He answered questions. He explained that he was born and raised in the USA, had never been charged with any terrorism crime, and had served his country honorably.

Then Mashal tried an online government "redress" process. FBI agents, he says, told him he could get off the list by becoming an informant in the Muslim community. Mashal contacted the ACLU and joined a dozen others in a suit against the government.

Last month, they won an important victory in federal court. Not one that gets them back on planes, but one that might give citizens barred from flying a better opportunity to clear their names.

The judge ruled that when the government bars U.S. citizens from flying internationally - a constitutional right - it must provide a meaningful way for them to challenge that ban. The current redress system, she held, is mired in secrecy, "wholly ineffective" and falls far short of the due process the Constitution guarantees.

To be sure, after 9/11 the country needed a method to prevent suspected terrorists from flying. Today, despite tighter airport security and reinforced cockpit doors, danger remains. On Wednesday, the U.S. called for tighter airport security overseas because of heightened concern about an al-Qaeda bomb effort.

But if the no-fly list is to continue, the government should have a higher standard for putting U.S. citizens on it - one that is not secret - and a more effective way for them to appeal.

Ever since watch-listing started, innocent people have been ensnared by government ineptitude. How could it be otherwise? About 50,000 people, including 1,000 U.S. citizens, are on the no-fly list - part of a broader watch list of 700,000. The list is larger than the population of Vermont.

The government's threshold for putting someone on a list is not very high: "reasonable suspicion" that an individual has known or suspected terrorist ties. The judge wrote that "reasonable suspicion" is "more than a mere hunch" and less than enough to arrest someone. The government argues that criteria for the no-fly list are more stringent, but won't reveal what they are.

By making air travel impossible, the government has imposed burdens on Mashal and his fellow plaintiffs. Some have been kept from spouses and children living overseas, from educational and business opportunities, or from attending graduations, weddings and funerals.

Some errors involve mix-ups when an individual's name is close to one on the watch list. Those appear easier to correct.

Far worse is when a law-abiding citizen is actually on the list and tries to get off. He runs into a wall of secrecy. The government won't confirm whether he is on the list or not, or provide any of the evidence.

The only way to find out whether you remain on the list is to go to the airport and try again. Last year, Mashal did just that and was allowed to fly, just as mysteriously as he'd been barred.

The government is mulling over whether to appeal the federal judge's decision. The answer is easy. For U.S. citizens, the guilty-until-proven-innocent no-fly list process flies in the face of America's founding principles.

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Other views: US 'no-fly' list ineffective, needs changing

Abe Mashal, a 34-year-old Marine veteran, had flown frequently around the country to work with clients in his dog-training business.